People

With a film to plug, Ricky Gervais (left) has been putting himself about a bit, but his heart isn't in it. What he likes, he confides to Star magazine, now that he's bought "the nicest, biggest house in the nicest area that I can afford", is to stay home, "stroke my cat and eat comfort food like cheese or chicken and mash, with a bottle of wine and watch TV". So there he was, cat, cheese and bottle in hand, when that Louis Walsh sprang from the screen and cut him to the quick, observing that X Factor contestant Daniel Evans looked "like Ricky Gervais doing karaoke". "At first I thought he meant David Brent but no, he just meant me. So it seems you can't be a pop star if you look like me, according to Louis." It was clearly a dark night of the soul moment: "My mates were texting me, saying 'Louis Walsh made you look like a right twat'." Gervais has been offered his own chat show in the States, but will probably turn it down because "I wouldn't want it to be based around people plugging stuff".

These are the times that try women's wardrobes: Lady Sarah Apsley is closing her second-hand clothes showroom - she prefers the term "gently used" - in a converted 18th-century barn on her husband's Cirencester Park estate, but only because online sales are booming. "People recognise that gently used clothes aren't a badge of shame, they're a badge of honour," she says. She set up the company, discreetly recycling clothes from many of her grander friends, after trying to sell some of her own on an internet auction site. "They were going for about five pence and it all felt very grubby. People were openly offering fakes. They would ask me 'are these genuine', which I found very insulting." Her site currently offers a mother of the bride outfit for £306.50, and a Gloria Vanderbilt bridal gown reduced from £395 to £88. Still, sad about the showroom: the website still urges anyone in the neighbourhood to drop in - "the kettle is always bubbling away and there are goodies in the biscuit tin".

Bruce Willis has just sold the possibly slightly less gently used 1957 Corvette convertible given to him by Demi Moore when they were still married for just under $80,000 at Bonhams in Los Angeles.

Ann Widdecombe MP recalls one of the Blair's Babes intake - alas nameless - coming to her in shock after a first mauling in the House of Commons. "She thought it was because she was a woman - in fact, it was because she was useless."